Allan Ramsay. [A biography.] - National Library of Scotland

ALLAN RAMSAY 155
But here no beds are screen'd with rich brocade,
Nor fuel logs in silver grates are laid
Nor broken China bowls disturb the joy
Of waiting handmaid, or the running boy
Nor in the cupboard heaps of plate are rang'd,
To be with each splenetic fashion changed.'
The Prospect of Plenty is another poem wherein
Ramsay allows his reasoning powers to run away with
him. As Chalmers remarks :
;
' To the chimerical hopes
of inexhaustible riches from the project of the South Sea
bubble, the poet now opposes the certain prospect of
national wealth from the prosecution of the fisheries in
the North Sea—thus judiciously pointing the attention
of his countrymen to the solid fruits of patient industry,
and contrasting these with the airy projects of idle
speculation.' The poem points out that of industry the
certain consequence is plenty, a gradual enlargement
of all the comforts of society, the advancement of the
useful, and the encouragement of the elegant arts, the
cultivation of talents, the refinement of manners, the
increase of population—all that contributes either to
national prosperity or to the rational enjoyments of life.
The composition and structure of the poem are less
deserving of encomium than the wisdom of its precepts.
Like Content, it is tedious and dull, yet there is one
vigorous passage in it, beginning :
' A slothful pride ! a
kingdom's greatest curse,' and dealing with the evils
arising from the separation of the classes, which has
often been quoted. Nor must we forget The Vision,
which in the opinion of many must rank amongst the
best of Ramsay's productions. Published originally in the
Evergreen, over the initials ' A. R. Scot,' for some time
it was believed to be the work of a Scots poet, Alexander
;